An African Fable: Will Steenbok find the Rain? (Book #7, African Fable Series)

      Salome Byleveldt
     An African Fable: Will Steenbok find the Rain? (Book #7, African Fable Series)

When will it rain again? It is very hot and the river had dried up. There is only a little bit of water left in the last of the water-holes. Steenbok, a tiny antelope, is sent by the Animals to find the rain. Will she find it? Can she save Monkey who is dying of thirst? Will she be able to find the rain?The Petun nation has been destroyed by the Iroquois and the Huron and their Algonquian allies are nervous. Etienne, Sieur de Berignac, and his young cousin and protégé Pierre, have tools, kettles and blankets to trade, but it is the guns that are the most sought-after. A little brandy and some diplomacy will take them a long ways, but as Pierre discovers, the language barrier is a killer. A short story of Canada’s colourful and romantic past.

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    Muse: A Cat's Story

      Joanna Franklin Bell
     Muse: A Cat's Story

Muse is a young cat whose mind has a special power, but she feels trapped living her life as a stray in the big city. Her heart yearns for the countryside. She embarks on a powerful journey with friends at her side who teach her about love, loss, redemption, and most importantly, the joy of finding a home.Muse is a young cat whose mind has a special power, but she feels trapped living her life as a stray in the big city. With no memories of her kittenhood, she is haunted by dreams of the countryside, and she begins to wonder if the country is her real home.Two other stray city cats befriend Muse, and each of them has its own journey to make as well. Together, they embark on an adventure to discover what it means to be home, to find peace, to experience joy, love, loss, and acceptance, and to experience a wild ride along the way.Will Muse's unique abilities help or hinder her on her quest? Will she find the dream she's looking for?

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    The Raider

      Jude Deveraux
     The Raider

Jude Deveraux continues her beloved Montgomery saga in America with this dramatic, passion-filled tale of rebellion and love -- a breathtaking adventure to be savored all over again -- or discovered for the first time! The Raider In colonial New England, the British are hunting a fearless, masked patriot whose daring foils them at every turn. He's known simply as the Raider. Jessica Taggert, a proud-tempered beauty, thrills to the Raider's scorching midnight embrace, but despises Alexander Montgomery, the drunken town buffoon. In truth, the cleverly disguised Montgomery lives two lives...and only his triumph over the hated Redcoats will free him, at last, to know the full pleasure of Jessica's love.

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    Hotel of the Saints

      Ursula Hegi
     Hotel of the Saints

The bestselling author of Stones from the River and The Vision of Emma Blau renews her reputation as an extraordinary writer of short stories in this major collection that balances her reader on the magical border of laughter and sorrow. In Hotel of the Saints, Hegi enters the perspectives of lovers and loners, eccentrics and artists, children and parents: a musician tries to protect her daughter from loving a blind man; a seminary student yearns for the certainty of faith that belonged to him as a boy; a woman transcends her embarrassment for her first love, who has tripled in size. Ursula Hegi's bicultural background enriches these eleven luminous stories that are set in Europe, Mexico, and the United States. Her characters take risks in searching out the unique places where faith thrives for each of them -- a rundown hotel, the currents of Cabo San Lucas, the embrace of an ex-convict. And once again, she surrounds them with her elegant language and exquisite images.

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    Island Magic

      Elizabeth Goudge
     Island Magic

A lonely wanderer... A magical island... And Two People Bewitched By Love.... The Channel Islands were divided in allegiance between France and England. Of French blood, and yet subjects of Queen Victoria, the islanders were curious hybrid creatures. But now, in 1888, England is slowly stretching out her arms to them. Colin du Frocq is eight years old, and his dreams are of the sea that surrounds his home. By day he steals away and takes to the sea in any boat that is sailing. At night he lies in bed listening to the waves beating against the shore. Then one night, in a wild storm, a ship drives onto the nearby cliffs and a strange man enters Colin's life, changing Colin's course forever. A twist of fate brought Ranulph back to a springtime place that had forgotten him. A proud and beautiful woman offered him refuge, even though she did not understand why, as she trembled before his gaze. Now Ranulph could feel the spell of the Island twisting around him, binding him to the world of love and companionship he had rejected forever. A storm-wracked sea had brought him home. It was the magnificent fury of another storm that taught him the splendor of life and the power of love.

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    The Pistol

      James Jones
     The Pistol

As Japanese planes attack Pearl Harbor, an army private commits a simple crime that will change his life forever Richard Mast is a misfit in the infantry unit at Pearl Harbor. A bright mind in a sea of grunts, his only joy on the morning of December 7, 1941, is that today he has guard duty, which means he gets to carry a pistol. Usually reserved only for officers, the close-quarters weapon is coveted by every man in the infantry for its beauty and the sense of strength it gives the wearer. Mast intends to return the gun at the end of his shift—until the Japanese Navy intervenes. Turmoil erupts when the first bombs fall, and as the Army scrambles to organize its response to the swarm of enemy aircraft, Mast decides to hang on to the weapon, becoming a criminal on the day his country most needs heroes. This ebook features an illustrated biography of James Jones including rare photos from the author’s estate.

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    Wrong About the Guy

      Claire Lazebnik
     Wrong About the Guy

Ellie Withers is definitely not spoiled… so she wishes that George Nussbaum would stop implying that she is. It’s not her fault that her stepfather became a TV star and now they live in a big house and people fawn over her wherever she goes. She doesn’t even like being fawned over. Fortunately, her two closest friends understand her a lot better than George: Heather Smith loved her before she even knew who Ellie’s stepfather was, and handsome Aaron Marquand has a father who’s just as famous. With Aaron back in town and very much in her life, Ellie feels like things are just fine…or would be if her mother hadn’t hired George to tutor her. George has a habit of making Ellie feel a little less sure of herself, a little less on top of the world, a little less right about everything. Why does he always make her feel like she could be a better person than she is? When Ellie’s plans for her family, her friends, and even her love life don’t turn out the way she imagined, she begins to wonder if maybe she could stand to learn a thing or two after all…and whether it’s possible—or even likely—that the perfect person to teach her is the last person she’d expected.

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    Thicker Than Water

      Brigid Kemmerer
     Thicker Than Water

On his own. Thomas Bellweather hasn’t been in town long. Just long enough for his newlywed mother to be murdered, and for his new stepdad’s cop colleagues to decide Thomas is the primary suspect. Not that there’s any evidence. But before Thomas got to Garretts Mill there had just been one other murder in twenty years. The only person who believes him is Charlotte Rooker, little sister to three cops and, with her soft hands and sweet curves, straight-up dangerous to Thomas. Her best friend was the other murder vic. And she’d like a couple answers. Answers that could get them both killed, and reveal a truth Thomas would die to keep hidden…

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    Tiger Rag

      Nicholas Christopher
     Tiger Rag

The acclaimed author of Veronica and A Trip to the Stars returns with a dazzling new novel based on one of the great legends of musical history. New Orleans, 1900. The virtuoso cornet player Charles “Buddy” Bolden invents jazz, but after a life consumed by tragedy, the groundbreaking sound of his horn vanishes with him. Rumors persist, though, that Bolden recorded a phonograph cylinder, and over the course of a century it evolves into the elusive holy grail of jazz. Florida, the present day. Dr. Ruby Cardillo’s life is falling apart. Her husband, a prominent cardiologist, has left her for a twenty-six-year-old. Her daughter, Devon, a once promising jazz pianist, has recently finished an enforced stint picking up trash along the interstate after a drug conviction. Ruby’s estranged mother has just died, but not before conjuring up ghosts that Ruby thought she had put behind her long ago. After a long career as a well-respected anesthesiologist, Ruby suddenly jumps the tracks, forgetting to eat and sleep, indulging her every whim, wearing only purple, consuming only bottles of 1988 Château Latour. Then Ruby enlists Devon to accompany her on an impulsive road trip to New York, and both mother and daughter get more than they bargained for, discovering that their own shrouded family history is connected to the tantalizing search for Buddy Bolden’s long-lost cylinder. Ranging from turn-of-the-century Louisiana to Roaring Twenties Chicago to contemporary Manhattan, Tiger Rag is at once a moving story of loss and redemption and an intricate historical mystery from one of our most brilliant storytellers.

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    John Henry Days

      Colson Whitehead
     John Henry Days

Colson Whitehead’s eagerly awaited and triumphantly acclaimed new novel is on one level a multifaceted retelling of the story of John Henry, the black steel-driver who died outracing a machine designed to replace him. On another level it’s the story of a disaffected, middle-aged black journalist on a mission to set a record for junketeering who attends the annual John Henry Days festival. It is also a high-velocity thrill ride through the tunnel where American legend gives way to American pop culture, replete with p. r. flacks, stamp collectors, blues men , and turn-of-the-century song pluggers. John Henry Days is an acrobatic, intellectually dazzling, and laugh-out-loud funny book that will be read and talked about for years to come. From the Trade Paperback edition.

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    The Beckoning Silence

      Joe Simpson
     The Beckoning Silence

Joe Simpson has experienced a life filled with adventure but marred by death. He has endured the painful attrition of climbing friends in accidents, calling into question the perilously exhilarating activity to which he has devoted his life. Probability is inexorably closing in. The tragic loss of a close friend forces a momentous decision upon him. It is time to turn his back on the mountains that he has loved. Never more alive than when most at risk, he has come to see a last climb on the hooded, mile-high North Face of the Eiger as the cathartic finale. In a narrative which takes the reader through extreme experiences, from an avalanche in Bolivia, ice-climbing in the Alps and Colorado and paragliding in Spain - before his final confrontation with the Eiger - Simpson reveals the inner truth of climbing, exploring both the power of the mind and the frailties of the body. The subject of his new book is the siren song of fear and his struggle to come to terms with it.

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    The Stranger

      Max Frei
     The Stranger

From Publishers WeeklyFirst published to wide acclaim in Russia in 1996, the intriguing first Labyrinths of Echo novel introduces readers to protagonist, narrator and pseudonymous author Max Frei. Max, a self-described classic loser, stays up all night and sleeps during the day. His erratic sleeping habits turn out to be a blessing when a dream brings him to Echo, an otherworldly city inhabited by magicians, where he is named the Nocturnal Representative of the Most Venerable Head of the Minor Secret Investigative Force. After training to shed his terrestrial habits, Max's investigative intuition quickly makes him one of the city's most revered—and feared—men, and soon he's taking on midget murderers and rescuing bewitched sea captains. Gannon's translation preserves the book's quintessentially Russian wit and makes it easily accessible to English-speaking fantasy mystery fans. (Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review"The whole effect is like a collaboration between Raymond Chandler and Gilbert and Sullivan-cheerfully noirish and disturbingly satirical." - Library Journal "I've never looked forward to the publication of a book more than I did Max Frei's The Stranger...a fantastic book."-_January Magazine_ "_The Stranger_ is a hugely enjoyable mix of madcap mirth and fantastical adventure." -_California Literary Review_

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